The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 eBook

of the Sultan, and in 1898 they appointed Prince George
of Greece as High Commissioner. Between the political
parties of the island and the representatives of the
Powers the Prince, who worked steadily for the welfare
of Crete, had a difficult task, and in 1906 he withdrew,
his successor being Mr. Zaimis, a former prime minister
of Greece. The new commissioner was able to report
to the protecting Powers in 1908 that a gendarmerie
had been established, that tranquility was being maintained,
and that the Moslem population enjoyed safety and
security. Thereupon the Powers began to withdraw
their forces from the island. And the project
for annexation with Greece, which had been proclaimed
by the Cretan insurgents under Mr. Venizelos in 1905
and which the insular assembly had hastened to endorse,
was once more voted by the assembly, who went on to
provide for the government of the island in the name
of the King of Greece. I have not time to follow
in detail the history of this programme of annexation.
Suffice it to say that the Cretans ultimately went
so far as to elect members to sit in the Greek Parliament
at Athens, and that Turkey had given notice that their
admission to the chamber would be regarded as a casus
belli. I saw them on their arrival in Athens
in October 1912, where they received a most enthusiastic
welcome from the Greeks, while everybody stopped to
admire their picturesque dress, their superb physique,
and their dignified demeanor. If Mr. Venizelos
excluded these delegates from the chamber he would
defy the sentiments of the Greek people. If he
admitted them, Turkey would proclaim war.

MR. VENIZELOS’S SOLUTION

The course actually pursued by Mr. Venizelos in this
predicament he himself explained to the parliament
in the speech delivered at the close of the war against
Turkey from which I have already quoted. He declared
to his astonished countrymen that in his desire to
reach a close understanding with Turkey he had arrived
at the point where he no longer demanded a union of
Crete with Greece, “knowing it was too much
for the Ottoman Empire.” What he did ask
for was the recognition of the right of the Cretan
deputies to sit in the Greek chamber, while Crete
itself should remain an autonomous state under the
sovereignty of the Sultan. Nay, Mr. Venizelos
was so anxious to prevent war with Turkey that he
made another concession, for which, he frankly confessed,
his political opponents if things had turned out differently
would have impeached him for high treason. He
actually proposed, in return for the recognition of
the right of the Cretan deputies to sit in the Greek
chamber, that Greece should pay on behalf of Crete
an annual tribute to the Porte.